


Darkness

by eriah211



Category: Primeval
Genre: Blackouts, Dinosaurs, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Shopping Malls
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-17
Updated: 2017-03-17
Packaged: 2018-10-06 19:43:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10343259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eriah211/pseuds/eriah211
Summary: Lester's last minute visit to a shopping centre goes even worse than expected when a blackout leaves them in the dark.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on livejournal in 2014.  
> Secret Santa 2014 for goldarrow and her prompt "Someone is lost in the dark - either physically or mentally". She also asked for "Action, angst, happy ending".  
> Thanks to the ever wonderful fredbassett for the beta. Any remaining mistakes are mine and mine alone.

Lester had thought that buying a small present for his assistant wouldn’t take him too much time, but he had been terribly wrong. He’d stopped by the department store after work, one of the few days when he had managed to finish the paperwork early, and he’d gone directly to the stationery gift items department. It wasn’t much later, after looking at quite a few fountain pens and letter-openers, that he realised that Lorraine deserved something better than the standard gift from her boss. The woman was extremely competent and loyal, and also tough as nails. Nobody else could make a bunch of wild soldiers behave in the break room with just a glare, surely he could find something better for her without much difficulty?  
  
That was what he had thought then, but now, a long hour later, he was starting to regret the idea and he was seriously considering going back to buy the first letter-opener he could find. He’d been wandering around all the departments on both floors of the store like a lost dog; he had sniffed so many different perfumes that his sense of smell had stopped working; he had been shown several shawls, foulards and scarves and he was still confused about what was what; he still had no idea about what to buy and the store was about to close.  
  
Then his eyes stopped at the counter nearby where a young shop assistant was rearranging some umbrellas that were on display and one of them caught his eye. It was dark grey on the outside, plain and sober, but the inside of the umbrella was a bright blue sky with white clouds. He made up his mind in a second and walked towards the assistant.  
  
“Excuse me, I would like to buy that umbrella,” he said straightaway. “And I would like it gift-wrapped, if you might?”  
  
“Of course, sir. It will just take a minute,” the assistant said, smiling politely.  
  
It did in fact take only a minute and soon he had it in his hands, wrapped in colourful gift paper and with a red ribbon around the handle. He had promptly paid for it and he was now finally ready to go back home. He was tired, but he was happy with his purchase. Even though it wasn’t the most special of gifts, an umbrella was always useful in London and it was sober, but the bright blue sky gave it a cheerful look that Lorraine would surely like.  
  
Now, Ryan’s birthday was going to be far more complicated. It wasn’t as if they were really in a relationship, but surely he should buy him something, shouldn’t he? But what kind of present do you buy for a person you are having sporadic but terribly hot sex with? Maybe he shouldn’t buy him anything and keep it simple; maybe this was just a way of releasing tension for Ryan after all. And that was the problem, that Lester didn’t know what ‘this’ was, aside from a highly inappropriate office affair. Well, he thought, fortunately he still had two months before he had to face that problem.  
  
Lester was walking slowly towards the exit wondering if he should buy a small birthday card too when the lights blinked a few times and then went off. He heard some screams of surprise, but soon the lights came on again and they were replaced by soft laughs of relief. Unfortunately, he had only taken a few steps when the lights went off again and this time they stayed that way.  
  
Murmurs of annoyance spread through the place. Here and there Lester could see luminous signs showing the way to the exit, but they weren’t enough to light such a big place. People waited, getting increasingly nervous, but the lights didn’t return this time. Such a perfect day, Lester thought. But at least he had managed to buy the umbrella before everything went off.  
  
“Ladies and gentlemen, it looks like there is some trouble with the electrics,” a voice said from some point at the middle of the shop. “We don’t know how long it will take to fix the problem so we’ll be forced to close our store a few minutes early. We ask you to, please follow the advice of the shop assistants to get safely to the exit. We apologize deeply for any inconvenience.”  
  
Some assistants had found torches and were guiding people’s steps and a few customers were also using their phones as torches, but it was so dark that they couldn’t avoid bumping into each other, especially when they merged into the main hall that led to the stairs. Somebody bumped into Lester, making him stumble and almost fall against the lady that was walking ahead of him, but a strong hold on his arm stopped him in time. When he turned around to look at the person responsible, Lester received a brief apology from a suited man.  
  
Lester sighed and muttered ‘It’s nothing’. His patience was running short and he just wanted to get out, take his car and go home.  
  
Some stairs down to the ground floor, a few more metres and he was finally breathing the fresh air of the streets. But he still could see nothing. The street lamps were off. Hell, everything within a wide radius was pitch-dark. Lester suddenly missed the small emergency lights in the store. He had never thought that a place in the middle of a modern city could get so dark.  
  
The store was in fact next to the riverside. The main exit was in front of a lane that led to the main roads, and a big park that surrounded the building and spread down a slope and towards the river also separated it from the main, busy streets. This usually gave a sort of peacefulness to the place, but now, without a single light on, it just made it look creepy.  
  
On the other side of the river, the lights of buildings and street lamps shone brightly and, looking to the right, behind the dark silhouettes of the trees of the park, Lester could see some distant lights too. As it looked it was just this area that had lighting problems. A simple electrical problem, he thought while people around him started to walk away stumbling, but so terribly annoying.  
  
Lester started to follow some other customers that were walking slowly towards the car park on the left side of the building. After tripping over who knows what and almost falling twice, Lester decided to take out his phone to light the ground, at least a bit, enough to help him to arrive in one piece to the car, but after checking his pockets, he froze. His phone was gone. A second check confirmed that his wallet was gone too. His annoyance went up to another level, one that usually made the ARC team find imaginative new chores far away from his office for as long as the danger lasted. Lester remembered the man bumping into him; it had probably been then that his phone and wallet had been snatched and he hadn’t noticed. He hadn’t even seen the man’s face clearly so there was no way he could describe him to the police.  
  
Lester tripped again and considered his options. He could ask one of the people walking ahead of him to let him use their phone and call the police, but the thief was probably long gone, he couldn’t really identify him and, more importantly, he didn’t want to spend half an hour at best waiting in the dark for the police to arrive. The other option was to find his car, get home as soon as possible and deal with the police some other time, preferably after having blocked his credit cards and phone number and having drunk a decent glass of something strong and expensive.  
  
“Hey, at least there’s light in the car park!” a man said with relief.  
  
Well, something was finally improving, Lester thought. Almost at the back of the car park there was a light, partially blocked by a large van parked beside it. It was flickering, but it was enough to light the place dimly. People hurried and so did Lester, walking at fast pace to get to his car before that light went off, too. In fact, Lester realised, the light seemed to be getting smaller. And it kept flickering. With a bad feeling growing inside him, Lester walked to the van and looked at the source of the light. He cursed his luck loudly and stared at the anomaly as it got smaller and finally disappeared.  
  
Once the anomaly closed completely, Lester found himself in the dark again, but soon the headlights of the customers that had managed to find their cars lit the place. However, they were already starting to drive away and that meant the temporary lighting was going to disappear soon. Totally forgetting his car, Lester tried to find somebody who could lend him a phone. The ARC team should have already detected this anomaly, but he couldn’t be sure so he needed to make a phone call. A flash of light let Lester see a young man a few metres to his left and he walked straight to him.  
  
“Excuse me, sir,” Lester said, getting closer. “Somebody has stolen my phone and my wallet and I really need to make an emergency call, would you mind if I borrow yours for a moment?”  
  
“What? Oh, well, yes, of course.” The man hesitated slightly, but he finally took the phone from his pocket and gave it to Lester.  
  
“Thank you very much, I will be brief,” Lester said.  
  
After just one ringtone Lorraine answered the phone. He had been right about the team, they were already on their way, she assured him. He told her to inform Captain Ryan that he was there and that he knew the exact place where the anomaly had opened.  
  
“I’ll be waiting in front of the main entrance of the store,” he added. “Tell them to hurry up.”  
  
“OK, I’ll tell them right now,” Lorraine replied. “Be careful, sir.”  
  
“Thank you, Lorraine,” Lester said.  
  
He gave the phone back to its owner, who was now impatiently waiting by his car.  
  
“Can you find your car?” the young man asked. “I could give you a lift somewhere if you need it.”  
  
“Thank you very much, but it won’t be necessary,” Lester answered. “Somebody is already coming to pick me up.”  
  
“OK, then,” the man said. He got into his car and started driving away carefully.  
  
Lester was now alone in an almost empty car park. He considered the situation. The anomaly had been open, but he couldn’t know for how long or if something had come through it. He tried to survey the area, but it was pointless. Now that most of the cars had gone it was so dark he could barely see the ground around him. He decided to start walking towards the main entrance; after all, it was where he had told Lorraine he would be.  
  
And that was when the screams started.  
  


 

***

Ryan had spent the last minute trying to convince himself that he wasn’t worried about Lester being in the anomaly site. They didn’t know if anything at all had come through and even if that had happened, surely Lester had learnt by now how to act in a situation like that? ‘Yes, but he’s alone and unarmed,’ an annoying voice at the back of his mind reminded him.  
  
“How long?” Ryan asked the driver.  
  
“We’re almost there,” Finn answered. “Two minutes, tops.”  
  
Ryan had never hated the heavy traffic of the city so much.  At least their second car, with Stephen and the rest of the soldiers, had managed to catch up with them after getting stuck by the traffic lights a few streets away.  
  
A minute later they could already see the department store, or more precisely, the dark place where the store was supposed to be. Ryan cursed loudly. They had been warned there had been a power outage in the area, but he had hoped there would be enough light around the place to help them see something. They were going to need to use the torches if they wanted to see where they were going, and searching the park that surrounded the place was going to be a pain in the arse.  
  
They drove carefully along the dark road and had just come to a stop close to the main entrance when they heard shouts coming from the building. From behind its half-closed doors, a few people were nervously waving at them with a small torch.  
  
“Finn, Johnson, aim the headlights to each side so at least we can see if something comes closer,” Ryan said. “The rest of you, with me.”  
  
The headlights let them see the way to the main entrance quite clearly, but everybody turned on the torch attachments mounted on their rifles, just to be sure. As they got closer, the people on the entrance seemed to get even more nervous..  
  
“Be careful! There’s something dangerous out there!” a woman warned them.  
  
“Great, so we definitely have a creature on the loose,” Stephen said, aiming the torch beam around slowly.  
  
When they walked into the store, the people that were gathered there immediately closed the doors and started talking at the same time.  
  
“A man, they’ve killed a man outside!”  
  
“This is outrageous! Why did it take you so long?”  
  
“Please, we have to get out of here!”  
  
“They killed him in seconds. Where did they come from?”  
  
“Enough!” Ryan shouted in his best commanding voice. “We’ve come to help you and we’ll get you out safely, but first you have to calm down.”  
  
Ryan was turning around his torch, trying to find Lester’s face, but he wasn’t there, he just saw a bunch of scared civilians that had no clue about what was going on.  
  
“Now, I need one of you to tell me what’s happened,” Ryan added. “Somebody has been attacked?”  
  
A few minutes later, Ryan and two other soldiers went out and, following the directions they’d been given, found the body of a man a few metres away. The witnesses had said something the size of a large dog had attacked him when he was walking away, and that there was probably more than one of the creatures. They hadn’t seen much, as they’d immediately run back to take shelter in the store. The man’s body had been practically ripped apart and there was very little left of his face.  
  
Ryan looked at the shreds of the suit the man had been wearing and desperately tried to remember what Lester had been wearing that day. It didn’t look like Lester’s suit, did it? To be totally honest, he couldn’t really tell if the clothes looked alike. The light of their torches wasn’t enough and there was too much blood drying on them to even start guessing the original colour of the clothes.  
  
Ryan tensed. The blood was still drying. The creatures couldn’t be too far away, considering that they seemed to have been feeding until not long ago. They had probably run away when the team’s vehicles had arrived, but they hadn’t seen anything so the creatures couldn’t be big predators. He wasn’t sure that was a good thing that night, considering they were surrounded by darkness.  
  
“We’ll have to secure the area before trying to evacuate the civilians,” Ryan said out loud. “It looks like we scared them away, but they might change their minds and decide we aren’t that intimidating after all.”  
  
And we still have to find Lester, he thought.  
  
Ryan turned to the entrance and signalled to Stephen to come over to him. Just as Stephen got closer and started examining the body, one of his men crouched down and took something from the remains of the man’s jacket. It was a wallet. Ryan held his breath while the soldier looked for an ID.  
  
“There’s a driving license,” the soldier said hesitantly. “It says ‘James P. Lester’ on it, captain.”  
  
Ryan felt like his blood was turning into ice. He couldn’t stop staring at the ripped body and the mean voice at the back of his mind kept saying, ‘You were too late. You were too late and he was here waiting for you’.  
  
His men turned to look at him and for once he was grateful for the darkness that was covering everything. He took a breath and gripped his gun hard. He would have to deal with this later, now he had a job to do and people who depended on him. ‘James depended on you and he died alone in the dark,’ the cruel voice reminded him.  
  
“Wait, there’s another one,” Stephen said picking something from the body.  
  
It was another wallet. The ID said Daniel Stevenson this time. Ryan was slightly confused, why would Lester have another man’s wallet with him? Maybe it wasn’t Lester’s body after all. Hope started growing inside him and he focussed on the butchered pieces of the body, trying to find another clue.  
  
A few steps away, beside what looked like the man’s ripped foot, they found another wallet. It was actually a woman’s purse and it belonged to a Martha Phillips. There were also some pieces of what looked like at least two different mobile phones around the place.  
  
“A light-fingered bloke?” Stephen asked.  
  
“It could be,” Ryan answered. “But that would mean Lester is still out here somewhere. We have to find him.”  


 

***

  
  
Lester woke up with a groan. His head hurt and when he felt his temple lightly, his fingers came away sticky with something that could only be blood. He was on the ground in the park, beside a big bush that seemed to have arrested his fall. Above him, the sky looked beautiful with thousands of shining stars.  
  
When he’d heard the screams of terror from the people and the terrified yells of pain, he had just got out of the car park. He’d been frozen in place, trying to decide what to do when the desperate screams of pain had ended abruptly and then he’d heard the sound of claws scratching the concrete getting closer. Then he had turned around and run into the park that surrounded the store. It had been a desperate move, but since he was still alive, he supposed it hadn’t been such a bad idea. Of course, since he couldn’t see where he was going, he’d soon tripped over something and had fallen, rolling down the slope that led to the riverbank. He’d been lucky, though and hadn’t crashed into a tree, but it looked like his head had hit a stone on the way down. He had also lost the umbrella at some point during the fall, but that was certainly the least of his worries.  
  
Lester sat down carefully, trying not to make much noise, and listened carefully. Around him everything seemed to be quiet. Looking up, Lester saw some lights moving around the main entrance of the store. The cavalry had finally arrived. He almost let out a shout for help, but he stopped himself at the last moment. If the creatures were around, he would attract their attention and the team might not be too far away, but it was far enough for him to get butchered before anybody could help him.  
  
There was no way for him to contact them quietly so the only option left was to walk carefully towards the lights. He had just stood up to start walking when he heard something moving to his left. It stopped almost immediately, but he was sure about what he’d heard. Then something moved to his right, a bit less timidly. Lester’s heart started beating wildly. He looked up again and saw some lights turning towards the car park. He could swear he had just heard Ryan’s voice shouting orders. Fuck it all, he thought.  
  
“Over here! Help!” he shouted at the top of his lungs as he started running up the slope and towards the lights.  
  


 

***

  
Stephen said the traces he had found showed that the creatures had run towards the park, choosing a more familiar surrounding than concrete and buildings. They were supposed to be looking for two or three creatures, about one metre long, four-legged and with very sharp teeth.  
  
It was going to be difficult in the dark, but they couldn’t wait until the power failure was sorted out. In view of the size of the park, Ryan called for backup and some extra lighting, but he decided to immediately start checking the side of the park into which the creatures had disappeared. Stephen had also tried to contact Lester on the phone, but got no answer.  
  
He left Finn with the civilians and sent two men to check the car park in case there were more people there. He gathered the rest and ordered them to spread across the park trying to find any trace of the creatures. The park went down to the river in a slightly steep slope, but even though there were trees and a lot of vegetation, it wasn’t a wild forest so it was fairly easy to walk through it.  
  
“Over here! Help!”  
  
Ryan was sure it was Lester’s voice.  
  
“Everybody ready!” Ryan shouted running down towards the voice.  
  


 

***

  
  
Lester could see the lights coming towards him and he tried to run up the slope to them, but his expensive shoes weren’t the best option for running on grass and he slipped again and again. He finally lost his balance and fell to the ground.  
  
“Here!” Lester shouted again.  
  
His heartbeat sounded so loudly in his ears that he couldn’t hear if the creatures were getting closer. For all that he could see they could be just a few steps away, ready to strike, but the sound of the men coming that way and the lights should have dissuaded them, shouldn’t they? He didn’t want to stay and discover if he was wrong, though.  
  
Lester was standing up again when something at his back got his attention and he turned to see a shadow moving slowly towards him. Then a beam of light fell upon it and the shadow became an ugly mixture of a feline and a reptile, with a long head and teeth that were way too big for Lester’s liking.  
  
There was a shot and the creature twisted in surprise, then it fell limply to the ground. The creature had just gone down when a strong hand grabbed Lester’s shoulder and turned him around to face a very relieved Captain Ryan.  
  
Lester heard more shots and guessed that the other creatures had been located as well.  
  
“One down!” Stephen yelled.  
  
“Another one down!”  
  
“That should be all, but check the area to be sure!” Ryan ordered without letting go of Lester.  
  
Ryan’s relieved expression turned into a worried one when he looked closely at Lester. Lester guessed his bloodied head was making him look terrible, but he really felt fine, a few scratches and a headache aside.  
  
“I’m all right, Ryan,” Lester said.  
  
Ryan didn’t look too convinced and kept checking him for further injuries.  
  
“There’s nothing broken and nothing missing, aside from a lovely umbrella, my phone and my wallet,” Lester insisted. “Although this is probably going to be another reason for me to deeply hate shopping.”  
  
He put a hand on the soldier’s chest and Ryan finally stopped fussing and looked straight at him with a haunted look in his eyes.  
  
“We found a dead man by the main entrance. I was sure it was you,” Ryan explained. “I thought I’d arrived too late.”  
  
The pain in the soldier’s eyes made something twist in Lester’s chest. He quickly looked around and made sure the others were still looking for more creatures far away. Then he got hold of Ryan’s collar to bring him closer and kissed him hungrily. Ryan seemed as eager as he was and even with a gun in his hand, he still managed to get an arm around Lester’s waist and bring his body flat against his, making him moan approvingly.  
  
There were certain things that Lester had never thought he would ever want to do in a park, but he was already changing his mind. Unfortunately, some things couldn’t be done with your subordinates walking around, darkness or not, so he eventually pulled away. And it was just in time to hear some heavy steps and see a light coming closer.  
  
“We haven’t found more creatures. I think they hunted in packs so the three we have already found are probably the only ones that came through the anomaly,” Stephen said when he got closer. “We’ll have a more thorough look when the backup arrives. You OK, Lester?”  
  
“Yes, I’m fine, just a bit bruised,” Lester answered.  
  
“Good to hear it,” Stephen replied. “I’m going to make sure we secure the creatures before they wake up.”  
  
Stephen called one of the soldiers for help and while Ryan went with him to the vehicles, they started checking the creature before tying it up. When Lester took a last look back, he saw Stephen was giving him a cheeky smile.  
  
For such a good tracker, Stephen was very noisy when walking around, Lester thought, blushing lightly.  
  


 

***

  
  
Some time later, after a visit to the hospital and a change of clothes, Lester felt almost back to his normal self and was sitting comfortably at the desk in his office. It was too soon, though, to hear Connor explaining in detail his numerous theories about the recent events.  
  
“So you say the anomaly caused the power cut in the area,” Ryan summarized, stopping Connor’s endless explanation.  
  
“Well, yes, but it was a mix of circumstances, because the underground electric substation was too close to the anomaly, but-“  
  
“Something malfunctioned or there was a short circuit, we get it,” Ryan interrupted again.  
  
Lester tried very hard to conceal a smile. It looked like he wasn’t the only one that wanted the meeting to be over as soon as possible. It was the last of their duties and then they could go home to rest, at least for a few hours. He had asked Ryan to come to his house with him and the soldier had immediately accepted. They probably weren’t going to get much rest, but he couldn’t care less.  
  
“I think we should look for fluctuations in the electric power over the last months. I mean, like other power cuts or similar. It might be interesting to see if they...”  
  
Ryan sighed and Lester glared at Connor, but he didn’t seem to get the hint. This was going to be hell.  
  
Stephen, however, seemed to be enjoying it, by the way he kept grinning at them. It was obvious they hadn’t been as discreet as he’d imagined, Lester thought, letting out a sigh of resignation.  Surprisingly, though, the more he thought now about people knowing about them, the less it bothered him.  
  
It had definitely been a day full of surprises.  
  
  
-End-


End file.
